Warning: Yep, this post contains spoilers for Nope, now available in theaters.
Cut the cameras. Dead a—.
Nope director Jordan Peele released the unsettling opening credits for Gordy’s Home!, the fictional sitcom at the center of the sci-fi thriller.
In the film, Steven Yeun portrays Ricky “Jupe” Park, a former child star reliving much of his glory days as the owner of a Western-themed amusement park, Jupiter’s Claim. His claim to fame came after he starred in a movie called Kid Sheriff, which evokes the likes of Indiana Jones and The Goonies. In the ’90s, he headlined the short-lived sitcom Gordy’s Home!, centered on a chimpanzee who lived among an all American family.
Universal Pictures Steven Yeun as Ricky ‘Jupe’ Park in ‘Nope’
Per Peele’s ambitious reimagining of the UFO summer film, the sitcom came to an end after the chimpanzee became violent during production, attacking and killing cast and crew in a bloodied scene after some balloons popped on set and set “Gordy” off. Peele released the opening credits not included in the film on Twitter Sunday, featuring the fictional stars played by Jacob Kim (as a young Jupe), Andrew Patrick Ralston, Jennifer Lafleur, and Sophia Coto.
All is dandy in the credits: The family of four and their chimpanzee pal go on a fishing trip and young Jupe and Gordy glimpse through a telescope together, among other sitcomisms. The subplot within the story — centered on siblings OJ (Daniel Kaluuya) and Emerald’s (Keke Palmer) close encounter with an alien in the sky on their horse ranch following their father’s mysterious death — has been interpreted as the idea that not all wild things could be tamed (whether chimps or said alien, later monetized by a grown-up Jupe), as well commentary on the risks taken to capture spectacles.
“The word I said the most on set was spectacle,” Peele, who says he wholly believes in aliens, tells EW during the film’s Around the Table with the cast. “A lot of our analysis dealt with spectacle and this business of spectacle. There’s a magic to it, something I’ve devoted my life to being a part of, and there’s also something insidious about it. And when you have that duality, that’s a perfect kind of thing for me to tackle because I love that. I love duality.”
More than anything, though, the film is “about the Hollywood mythology of the Wild West,” the filmmaker says. “And not only the sugarcoating of the barbarism of it, but the erasure of the Black cowboy. That’s all wrapped up in this movie. In a lot of ways, it’s about Hollywood.”
Nope is in theaters now.
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